Pinball Alley v2: Advanced Virtual Playtest

Today, in class, we playtested the final products of our advanced virtual designs. For my design, I remodeled my advanced physical design into a virtual design that worked better. This design focused on the theme of bowling and used drop targets for pins, had bowling sound effects, and even had a playable two player game.

Making my advanced design was much easier after gaining some experience with Visual Pinball. I started by setting up the initial layout of pinball components, which came from my design drawing. After that, I worked on the drop target pins and the bowling game logic. This logic wasn’t too hard to script, but it did take some time and was more advanced than my previous scripting. Once the game itself worked, I added sound effects, scoring, and images. For this machine, I decided to put my best effort into the look of the machine and I wanted players to feel like they were playing a legit game. After seeing the end result, I would say that my goal was achieved and the machine worked really well in resembling a bowling alley.

While playtesting in class, I received some feedback about the theme, playability, and implementation of my design. Most of the comments I received were in regards to my theme. Everyone seemed to like the bowling pinball game, as well as the sounds, which they said went well with the machine. The two player aspect was fun for most of the playtesters and made the game more appealing because it introduced a challenge between players. They also mentioned that the implementation of the design worked well, such as the pins. They did mention, however, that it would be cooler if the pins could fall on top of one another. But with limitations of the software, this would be too difficult to implement. Regardless, my machine turned out to be a success and I’m glad the class liked it.

If I had to redo my advanced virtual design, I wouldn’t change too much. The whole point of this design was to resemble my advanced physical machine and improve upon the idea using Visual Pinball’s various tools. I believe I achieved this goal perfectly, however, if I had to change something, I’d work a bit more on the bowling score calculation. For the scoring of the game, I focused on a simpler version of bowling, since I capped the game at 3 frames (otherwise it felt too long). However, If I were to go back, I’d do some research on the scoring behind bowling and try to implement that in my own way through scripting. This would make the game feel more realistic. I would also go back and find more reliable sound effects for the machine, since I struggled a bit with finding sounds that fit the machine the way I wanted them too (even though the class liked them). Other than that, I enjoyed the time I spent using all the skills I learned in class to make this final machine. I hope I can use these skills again and I’ll definitely experiment more with Visual Pinball in the future!

References

Bowling Floor Image: https://i.imgur.com/qa2h9W8.png

Back Glass Image: https://starlitebowling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Starlite-Background-1.jpg

Polished Wood Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/89/b4/f2/89b4f216bc39b79db3cdb20a2b03eb11.jpg

Bowling Pin Image: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1840/8513/products/bowling-pin-classic-sports-cremation-urn.jpg?v=1565542302

Bowling Explosion Image: https://cdn.clipart.email/babb868e78a598d5d0df43a8a855993f_smartness-bowling-ball-and-pins-clip-art-clipart-skittle-pencil-in-_1188-1300.jpeg

Black Material Image: https://colourlex.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Spinel-black-painted-swatch-47400-opt.jpg

Ball Material Image: https://t1.rbxcdn.com/d2a9c95ee07a5fd244a89c542df112f2

Bowling Arrow Image: https://www.trzcacak.rs/myfile/detail/16-164662_arrow-scalable-vector-graphics-clip-art-black-arrow.png

Warning Image: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41tChfmsyvL._SX342_.jpg

Let’s Bowl Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/61/d4/5c61d4830ee96e9a27dbfab3557ec103.png

Bowling Ambiance Sounds: https://www.freesfx.co.uk/Category/Bowling/467